Infrastructure Tech Lead

B2B marketing in the age of AI: Tech Week Grand Rapids highlights. Why it Matters In reading this post, B2B marketing leaders will get a visual recap of Oktopost's Tech Week Grand Rapids event. This post covers the day's sessions, speakers, and moments through photos from the keynote, fireside chat, and agentic AI session. Key Points * Oktopost hosted 117 marketing leaders at New Vintage Place in Grand Rapids on September 16, 2026 for a Tech Week session on AI's impact on B2B marketing. * Daniel Kushner's opening keynote framed how AI is reshaping strategy and operations while trust, buying decisions, and commercial growth remain unchanged. * Colin Day moderated a fireside chat with Troy Best (Growth Marketing Manager at GuidePoint Security), Eryn Leedy, MS (Digital Marketing Manager at JR Automation, a Hitachi Group Company), and Lynne Jarman-Johnson (CMO at Consumers Credit Union) on where AI is delivering real business value today. * A live agentic AI session, led by Grace Kinna, Hannah Curran, and Whitney Hoving, gave attendees a hands-on look at AI in marketing operations workflows. * Colin Day's companion piece expands on the thinking that shaped the session. The main session. When every competitor has the same AI, what's left to differentiate you? That was the question on the table at New Vintage Place in Grand Rapids, where Oktopost brought together 117 marketing leaders for an afternoon exploring exactly that, as part of Tech Week Grand Rapids. Welcome Note: Daniel Kushner, CEO of Oktopost, opened the day, framing why AI is reshaping strategy and operations while the fundamentals, like trust, buying decisions, and commercial growth, remain the same. What Changes, What Doesn't: The core keynote by Colin Day, CMO at Oktopost, dug into where AI is genuinely moving the needle in B2B marketing, and where the old rules still win. The Fireside Chat: Colin also moderated the panel session with Troy Best, Eryn Leedy, MS, and Lynne Jarman-Johnson on what every marketing leader is rethinking in 2026, and the practitioner's view on where AI is delivering real business value today. Agentic AI in Action: Oktopost's Grace Kinna, Hannah Curran, and Whitney Hoving led an intriguing live session on agentic use cases in marketing operations, giving attendees a hands-on look at AI in the workflow. Conversations over craft. The day wrapped with Grand Rapids craft beer, Michigan wine, and #B2BToTheCore photo-booth moments as attendees kept the debate going and their drinks flowing. In summary. Thanks to everyone who came out and brought the questions.

Get strategic answers from your data with Social Listening AI Insights. Why it matters. Social listening dashboards were supposed to answer "what are people saying about us." Instead they created a new problem: too much data, not enough time to turn it into a decision and that gap gets more expensive every year content and conversations accelerate. The teams that win in 2026 won't be the ones with the most widgets. They'll be the ones who can go from "here's what changed" to "here's what we do about it" without a manual translation step in between. Putting the insight layer directly on the dashboard closes that gap right where it costs the most: the moment before a decision gets made. Key takeaways. * The bottleneck in social listening was never data access, it was translation. Turning charts into a clear narrative was eating the time teams should've spent acting on what the data showed. * AI Insights sits directly on every dashboard, automatically generating a citation-backed summary of key trends, anomalies, and emerging conversations as you look at the data. * Speed compounds. Cutting time-to-insight from hours to minutes means trends get caught while they're still opportunities, not after competitors have already moved on them. The big picture. Social listening has never been more important, or more difficult to operationalize. The good news is that Social Listening AI Insights turns dashboard data into clear, actionable narratives your team can act on immediately. In 2026 alone, content marketing and social conversations move faster than ever. Research from the Content Marketing Institute found that 95% of B2B marketers now use AI-powered tools, and 24% cite differentiating their content from competitors as a top challenge. As content volume grows and trends emerge in real time, the cost of delayed insights continues to rise. While social listening dashboards offer rich data, teams often spend valuable time translating charts into narratives instead of identifying opportunities, mitigating risks, and informing business decisions. As AI accelerates content creation and market conversations move faster than ever, B2B marketers are under increasing pressure to identify meaningful trends, understand audience sentiment, and communicate insights to stakeholders before opportunities or risks pass them by. The challenge isn't access to data. It's turning data into action. What is social listening? Social listening is the process of tracking and analyzing online conversations, mentions, and industry trends across social media and the wider web to understand audience sentiment and inform business strategy. It gives B2B teams real-time visibility into buyer conversations, competitor moves, and market trends that traditional research cycles miss entirely. Social listening dashboards provide a wealth of information, but extracting a clear narrative often requires hours of manual analysis. By the time teams identify the story behind the numbers, competitors may have already capitalized on emerging trends, leadership teams are still waiting for answers, and critical decisions are delayed. That's why Oktopost Technologies, Inc. is introducing Social Listening AI Insights. What is Social Listening AI Insights? Social Listening AI Insights turn dashboard data into strategic intelligence by adding an AI-powered insights layer directly to every social listening dashboard. This automatically transforms your data into clear, actionable narratives. Instead of manually reviewing charts and comparing widgets, you can instantly understand what's happening, why it matters, and what deserves attention. This is what a clear narrative behind social listening data actually looks like: what B2B social listening should actually do for your pipeline, made visible on every dashboard instead of buried in a spreadsheet. What is global Social Listening AI Insights? Global Social Listening AI Insights is a a new AI-powered insights header that is permanently embedded at the top of every social listening dashboard. As you analyze your listening data, AI automatically reviews the visible dashboard metrics and generates a concise, citation-backed summary of key trends, anomalies, and emerging conversations. This helps teams: * Reduce time-to-insight from hours to minutes * Surface important trends before they become missed opportunities * Communicate findings clearly across teams and leadership * Spend less time reporting and more time driving strategy Whether you're monitoring brand perception, tracking industry conversations, or evaluating campaign impact, AI Insights helps you quickly understand the story behind the data. Keep insights relevant with feedback and regeneration. AI-generated insights should adapt to your needs. With built-in feedback controls, you can rate summaries with a thumbs up or thumbs down and regenerate insights whenever you update dashboard filters or need a fresh perspective. This ensures summaries remain accurate, relevant, and aligned with the context you're analyzing. From reporting to action. Imagine preparing for a weekly executive review. Instead of manually analyzing dozens of charts and compiling findings into a presentation, Social Listening AI Insights instantly generates a concise narrative highlighting the trends, shifts, and anomalies that matter most. The result is faster stakeholder alignment, clearer communication, and quicker decision-making. The value of social listening comes from helping your organization act on the data, not just collecting more of it. Social Listening AI Insights is available now. If you're not yet an Oktopost customer and want to see Social Listening AI Insights in action, book a demo.